Chapter 25: No More Reapings

It's a couple of years before the districts decide to rise up.

Three years in fact. After a heart-stopping end to the 79th Games, the districts rebel, having had enough of Capitol tyranny. Katniss, Haymitch and I escape with my Dad and Prim to District 13, long thought dead. Many of our fellow victors are not so fortunate.

Together, Katniss and I lead a rebellion that overthrows the Capitol and installs a constitutional democracy. The Hunger Games are abolished forever.

Apparently, it doesn't matter if I simply doze off in the middle of the day while watching my toddler daughter, Clementine, play in the Meadow that is our backyard. The nightmares still come. This one, which features some horrors from my own Games, is actually a rare occurrence; usually I have nightmares about Katniss's Games. And even then, she does enough nightmaring (is that a word? No, it probably isn't; I'll have to ask Prim, my schoolteacher sister-in-law) for the two of us.

I quickly compose myself from where I have sat up almost in a cold sweat. Thankfully, Clementine does not seem to notice my distress. I also think to praise Mondays off, when my Dad takes over the bakery I inherited from him and now run. He's been phasing out the last eighteen months or so; soon, the old man will be blissfully retired, worried about nothing but spoiling his grandchildren rotten.

"Clementine!" I call. "Come inside; Mommy almost has supper ready!" Her blonde curls – my color blonde – bounce behind her as she runs to me and I scoop her up in my arms and carry her inside. I set her down just inside the door and she scampers to the table.

This. This is the sight I live for: my wife of nearly 20 years, Katniss, finishing the last touches on our dinner, even as she rocks our infant son, Eric, in her arms. Super Mom is not a strong enough superlative for her.

I can just make out what she is cooing to our tiny baby, her eyes full of a love that she reserves only for her family, but especially for me.

"Ssssh…..sssssh….." she coos, tickling Eric's chin. She has the most adorable grin as she asks him, "Did you have a nightmare just now?"

Her back is to me, so she doesn't see me. I lean against the doorframe, grinning like a lovesick idiot, not really minding if she catches me staring.

"I have nightmares, too," my beloved admits. "Some day I'll explain it to you. Why they came, why they won't ever go away."

And so will I, I think somberly now, the grin on my face morphing slightly to add just a hint of wistful sadness. And so will we all. Even Haymitch will – the old geezer! – though it may take some convincing from me, arm-twisting from Katniss.

"But I'll tell you how I survive it," Katniss whispers to our baby. "I make a list in my head, of all the good things I've seen someone do. Every little thing I can remember. It's like a game. I do it over and over. It gets a little tedious after all these years, but…. there are much worse Games."

Games that you and Clementine will never know, I vow. I saunter up behind her and take her in my arms from behind, my hands about her abdomen. She sighs and leans into my frame as I kiss along her neck and face before finally capturing her lips in a sweet, lingering kiss. We break apart tenderly, smiling softly into each other's eyes. Katniss's pupils are shining with unshed tears.

"Our babies will never know pain the way that we knew it," I promise my wife. "That's practically a given, with you as their mother: the most sweet" - kiss - "caring," - kiss - "beautiful woman, person I have ever known."

"Hmmmm…" Katniss smiles happily. She glances down at our youngest child with adoration in her eyes. "And they'll both take after their brave, handsome father."

I chuckle. "Your compliments flatter me, Mrs. Mellark."

She turns and kisses me passionately. "Say my name again," she whispers against my lips as we start to break apart. "Hearing it makes me feel like I'm yours."

I grin. "As you wish, Mrs. Mellark."

And together, we join our daughter at the dinner table to continue our peaceful life – a life well earned.

*** I see my wife as a teenager, climbing up the side of the great metal horn, the mutts at her heels but thankfully just missing her. I am startled to notice that she is alone; Gale's not with her. When she reaches the top, she barely has time to catch her breath before Cato surprises her, attacking her from behind. He gets her bow out of her reach quickly, and Katniss can only dodge his attempted blows with his sword. Soon, she is crab-crawling back away from him, as Cato - even though he's now without a weapon - looms over her. She backs away as he reaches down for her legs, his smile leering, and I realize with horror that he intends to have a little fun with her first before he kills her.

"This is the last time you will interfere with my plans, Katniss Everdeen! Who will save you now, Katniss? Who?" he taunts.

Suddenly, I witness a dejavu moment, as I see my 16-year-old self swing in out of nowhere, hanging onto the end of what looks like a construction crane. Cato barely has time to reel in horror before, my face contorted in determined rage, I kick out and hit him square in the gut. Cato plummets off the Cornucopia to the waiting mutts below, as I drop to the gun-metal gray surface of the horn. Meanwhile, the commotion knocked Katniss towards the edge herself and she begins to flail. I desperately seize her by the hand, and pull her to her feet and safety, until our faces and bodies are inches apart, my hands about her waist. We hug, before looking down at Cato's bloody end, still holding each other close. After several agonizing minutes, the cannon sounds for his death.

We look into each other's eyes for a moment, but the peace of it is shattered as suddenly as the metal that crumbles abnormally beneath my feet, sending me plunging to the grassy earth where the mutts once were. I hit hard and feel something combust inside me. That's it. I know I'm dying.

Katniss somehow manages to scramble down the Cornucopia safely and rush to my side. Already crying, she is trying to heal my wounds. I oddly crack a grin.

"Remember, we're madly in love, so feel free to kiss me anytime you feel like it." Katniss lets out a choked laugh that quickly dissolves into heaving sobs. I, meanwhile, have no idea what my younger self is even doing here in the arena, or what he is talking about. His words almost imply that we are faking our love for the arena. The thought sends a stab through my heart. And does this also mean that Katniss and I have never kissed yet?

It would seem so, for Katniss looks down at me with something that resembles pity. I don't want pity; all I want is her love!

"Katniss...I..."

"Yes?" she weeps.

"...I love you."

She stares at me for a moment. Then, she suddenly bends down and gives me the sweetest, softest kiss imaginable, right on my lips. Far, far away, I can hear the cannon boom, signaling my own death. And as the sound fades away on the wind, Katniss's lips draw back from mine.

I feel myself slipping away. I don't want to die! I want to stay with her! No, no, NO!

"No, no, NOOOO!" I cry and my fate seems even more cruel when I can hear Katniss's voice.

"Peeta? Baby? Wake up, you're scaring me!"

I jolt awake, in a cold sweat. I am not dead. I am in my own room, clutching the sheets, the sheets of my bed. Of Katniss's and my bed. And there she is. My beautiful wife, sitting up and staring at me with a look of pure fright on her face. It soon morphs into gentle sympathy when she sees I have satisfactorily returned to the conscious world.

"Honey, what happened? You were saying awful things in your sleep. What did you see?"

I tell her my dream: about saving her from Cato, about the Cornucopia collapsing under my feet. The implication we were in the arena together and our love was fake. Dying. By the time I finish, Katniss's eyes are glassy with tears. Pure sympathy and love radiates from her face. She reaches over to me. "Oh Peeta..."

Then she is kissing me everywhere: my eyelids, my face, my hair, my lips, my ears. She gently lowers me back into the covers as she continues her worship of me. Between kisses, she pants out the only other medicine that is just as effective for moments like this; Haymitch invented it, and we now play it often to help us cope with the past:

"You were in the arena with me: Real or Not Real?"

I shake my head, and she giggles when she misses my lips and kisses my cheek clumsily instead. "Not Real."

"You and I are married; husband and wife: Real or Not Real?"

I grin deliriously at the thought that this woman is mine. "Real."

"We have two beautiful babies together: Real or Not Real?"

My grin becomes rather naughty and I growl out, "Real."

Katniss notices my husky behavior and eyes me, swatting my arm as if to say, Behave. Then neither of us can take it anymore and we laugh. Katniss smiles at me, but her eyes are still filled with tears.

"I will die," she vows, her voice cracking with emotion, "before any one takes you from me. In any way. I love you, Peeta." She resumes kissing me every place that she can reach. "My Boy with the Bread. My Dandelion in the Spring. My Precious One."

I smirk. "You know, you're gonna need a database to keep track of all the pet nicknames you have for me." Unlike most other times, Katniss doesn't seem to notice my teasing.

"Only because there are so many wonderful ways to describe you, my love." She stops the kissing and looks down at me, her face and eyes sad, though she smiles. "I was such a fool. Why didn't I realize I was in love with you? I should have gone after you sooner."

I shake my head and grin. "It wasn't your fault. If anyone took their time in wooing the other, it was me. We never even spoke until we were 16. Besides, you didn't really know me back then. It may have looked weird for you to say, 'Hey, remember me? You threw me bread when we were kids together, will you marry me?' I should have taken action right after you gave me an erection when you sang in music assembly the very first day of school."

My wife giggles: a beauty of a sound when heard. "My singing aroused you at five years old?"

Even though it shouldn't matter, I blush anyway. "I had no idea what it was or what it meant. I just knew I wanted to...be with you. I couldn't put it into words then."

"But you did end up with me. The night..."

"...that you sucked me off until I came in your mouth. After my last interview with Caesar. Our first time alone together."

Katniss looks away, her face flushing, but her eyes now pained. I know what she's thinking. That's not exactly true - our first time alone together. I know she is remembering the rape the night before I left for the arena. Even today, it brings me shame, us both shame - though she forgave me long ago and understands that I did what I did out of love for her and the desire to protect her. That's why we technically don't consider the rape our first time together, and never speak of it, except for the occasional moment when Katniss will vaguely refer to it as "the moment that made me love you."

I turn her chin so that she faces me. We look into each other's eyes and she smiles. Then she abruptly pushes me flat on my back and deftly straddles me. "Let's make love," and her voice hisses in my ear, tickling it. "After two kids, I may not be what I used to be in bed, but..."

I gawk at her, unable to even fathom what she means. "You could never lose your touch, sweetheart. You're still the Girl on Fire."

And so she is, lighting us both up while we make love until the morning light.

For every stoplight I didn't make

Every chance I did or I didn't take

All the nights I went too far

All the girls that broke my heart

All the doors that I had to close

All the things I knew but I didn't know

Thank God for all I missed

Cause it led me here to

This

~ Darius Rucker

A/N: And that's all folks! In case you were wondering, the early part of the nightmare, with Peeta swinging from a crane was based on a scene in The Jewel of the Nile with Michael Douglas. Just thought I'd point that out.